I thought the few remaining writers and readers could collect some ideas, how we could revitalize this Forum.My main idea would be an email to all registered Users.I think this Forum has started some time ... it should be possible to restart it again.Probably it would be necessary, that the genetic area is "closed" for non-registered readers and Users who were non-active e.g. for more than 6 months. I think it is not acceptable, that people collect knowledge here to carry it to other Forums, without contributing here.An other way to make the wealth of knowledge available on a "fair trade basis" could be to take money.This would be also an option to finance the future of the Forum and the change to another safer and more comfortable Forum Software.This Forum is an example with paying members. They were using my favorite Forum Software Invision Power Board in the past, but changed to the free Forum MyBB.http://www.poultrychat.com/showthread.php?tid=16752

You are correct that we get thousands of views from non-members. I can make individual forums not viewable for non-members. I would want to keep forums such as health and management open to all in order to help those who are new to poultry and unsure of what they need to be doing.

I would like to hear suggestions on this. Should we close forums to non-members and if so, which forums?

I will look into our ability to email members in mass in order to invited them to come back. I would like suggestions on what we would say to them.

I am open to other suggestions.

As I have told you all before, I am limited in what I can do. If it can be done through the control panel I can do it but many thing I do not have access to and the board owner I have not spoken with in years, yes I said years!

I can not find a way to send mass emails to members. Moderators can view members email addresses through the edit member option. If we had a list of members we wished to contact and a moderator who would take the time to contact each one, it could be done.

Many years ago we had a big problem with too much social chatter. It caused many problems on the board. Today there are so many sites dedicated to social interaction that people do not use boards like this for that purpose. With that in mind, is it time to rethink the policy. Would members check in and participate more if we added a forum for social interaction? We would keep the forums dedicated to topic but add a place where members could discuss other interests and get to know more about each other. Please tell me what you think.

So we can send a mass email. Any suggestions for what to include in this email?

There are 2498 registered users. I am sure many of the emails on file are no longer valid. Some will go to spam folders and I would not send to members who registered and never posted. Even so a few hundred should hit the in boxes of members.

Anyway....So my concern is that if specific forums are not made visible to visitors (including on the forums front list page), it may have the opposite effect and reduce participation &/or reduce new people to join. How are new people going to know a forum exists when it is completely hidden (except maybe a search engine result or an old link, or word of mouth)?

This forum set-up is very different to Facebook groups, where even closed FB groups have a summary front page so you have an idea if you want to apply to join the group or not.

Ok, I just tested after I logged off (& closed browser) whether I could Google search for old topics in the genetics forum & whether I could access old genetics threads. The result - yes, I could bring up old genetics threads without being logged in.

So.... Making the genetics forum link / front index page invisible to anyone not logged in or not a member does not stop someone accessing the genetics forum old threads (by direct links or search engines).